I'm an aspiring Galoot, and I've been lurking about, off and on, for a
while now.I finally signed up after Jim Lemon shamed me into it (thanks
for the gentle push Jim!). I'm 38, married, with a 10 month old
daughter. We live on the West Side of LosAngeles in a house that was
built in 1928. We bought this place about three

years ago, and have been slowly fixing it up (it was a disaster when we
bought it). I've done most of the work myself, but have brought in some
pros for the new roof,new plumbing, and repair and refinishing of the
floors. Everything else I've done by myself, or with the help of family.
I grew up in the Washington DC area, moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago
for gradschool. My father/grandfather/greatgrandfather are/were all
bricklayers, so I spenta lot of time as a kid around the building trades
and hanging out in various lumberyards, brick yards, construction sites.
My family built our own house when I wasaround 10 years old, so I got to
see how everything goes together. Also spentmany Summers in high school
and college hauling bricks around for summer employment. I took one of
those home ec/shop half-and-half classes in 8th grade, but at myschool,
they didn't allow you to touch anything except for sandpaper and
screwdrivers. As I've read in many other posts on the porch, the class
also hadtons of hand tools locked away in a closet, and a bunch of power
tools that thekids would watch the teacher use, and that was it. My
highschool had auto shop,but I don't remember any wood or metal shop
classes. Needless to say, myexperience in wood craftsmanship was pretty
limited. I think my Dad a one or twoplanes laying around for sticking
doors etc, but he never sharpened a tool in his life,and those planes
were like taking shavings with a baseball bat.Until I started poking
around online, I would have never suspected that planes, orany tool for
that matter, weren't perfectly ready for use out of the box. The old
handtools are also great because they are purpose build, they have a
specific use. MyDads motto is, "anybody can do something with the right
tool, only a true craftsmancan do it with the wrong tool". While I
wholeheartedly disagree with him, althoughhe does do great work when it
comes to masonry; other trades.... not so much... My wife says my motto
is, "if there is a project, there is probably a tool that I needto buy
in order to complete that project"... she's so right. My tool addiction
started when we bought our house. A few of the doors were

sticking from 80 years of repainting and house settling, so I bought a
new stanleyplane to fix them. The thing didn't work very well, so I went
online to figure out whatwas wrong. There I read that, surprise!, you
have to tune the plane before using it,and that buying new hand tools is
a waste of money, that you should buy old onesthat are better made, and
cheaper. Well I went on ebay and bought a #4 for about$15, tuned it up,
and tested it out on a piece of scrap wood, and I was hooked. Ihad just
finished rebuilding a rotted out 8' x 8' arch top window in our living
room,which required endless nights in the shed shaping window muntins
with a whinyNormie router. I realized through my plane research for the
doors that there weretons of hand tools that I could have used on that
project without all the noise, andhastle. Game on! You mean a 45 could
have reproduced those muntins? Amazing! . Since then, I've been steadily
buying hand tools, both online, a few at localantique dealers, and a few
when I take trips to England (my wife is English so weget over there
every year). I've now built a good set of tools that allow me to domost
projects. From a plane perspective we're talking about 3-7, 40 scrub,
45,71 router, 75, 78,112 scraper, 113 compass, and 140 skew block, a
bunch of chisels,saws, a few complex molding planes from England trips,
and my latest addition isa harlequin half set of hollow and rounds. I
have a small 10x12 "manshed" in the back that was built around 1911.
Super lowceilings and not a lot of space; but its a great escape. My
biggest challenge iswood, I do lots of "practicing" on crappy old
lumber, but have completed few projectssince my tool infection began.
Spent a lot of time learning how to sharpen and tune,and even learned
how to sharpen saws, which was something I never knew waseven an option
(my family always looked at them as disposable, or just used themdull)
First, I built a starter workbench out of standard dimentional lumber
and a top thatwas glued together from lumber salvaged from renovations.
I did everything byhand and did all the mortise and tenon joints in the
legs (also eye opening). Its notpretty, it won't be a family heirloom,
but its pretty flat, and it will do until I canupgrade. I also started
building some of my own tools, the most significant of whichis a frame
saw for resawing. Recently bought an old electric lathe, after dabbling
with,and then rejecting, the idea of a treadle lathe, so now there isn't
a handle-less chiselthat isn't my friend. Some of the things I'm
interested in right now are, how to mill lumber by hand (basedon my lack
of a wood stash), and specifically, how to utilize urban lumber
forwoodworking projects. Its amazing the number of trees removed in the
LA area thatare just chipped up and sent to the compost facility. Also
started a project to buildan old 1930's paddleboard using only hand
tools. I have the plans from a 1937Popular Mechanics issue, and have
even cut out all the ribs (thank you 113 compassplane!), but the baby
put that on hold.... for now. Looking forward to learning more, and
hopefully finding new reasons to buy more tools. Steve
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